5 Times Smokey Kept His Cool, and 1 Time He Didn't
by whipplefilter
Summary: Truth be told, he expected him after the funeral. But days passed. Weeks. Then years. Hud's boy never showed. Hud's leaving, and Lightning's coming, from Smokey's POV.


**1.**

Smokey gives Hud the news: He's history. Team owner, Clay (insert innumerable jokes about kilns–Smokey and Clay and crafting the greatest racing team known to the only side of the Mississippi that's ever mattered), is out scouting new talent. Clay is slight in build and slighter in character. Never went to Hud in the shop, probably won't ever find himself in a room with Hud again. Willful amnesia. That's what shame is like, in some. No, it's better if Smokey tells it.

If Smokey don't crack, then neither will Hud. Too much pride. They will get through this together.

"I'm out, too, you know," Smokey tells Clay. Clay's face falls, but if he ain't about to fight Doc, he sure ain't gonna fight Smokey. Smokey says, pointedly, "Got some mending to be done here."

 **2.**

Hud's gone by sunrise. Like he hadn't even had to think about it. A few hours later, Louise is knocking on his door, panicked. Louise, Hud left a note for. Not that it says anything Smokey don't already know. He lets his gaze flick over it. Gets out a pen and paper. Louise looks hopeful, for a moment. Like there's something Smokey could do to summon Hud back.

Smokey doesn't say anything. It's a kindness, really; Louise'd hate herself if she knew how bare, how vulnerable she looks. She ain't about that kind of thing.

"Outta gaskets," he says eventually, and flaps his letter in the air. "Think Ned's got some over Suffolk County. Never picks up the phone, though. Gonna make him deduct the cost of the stamp."

 **3.**

Tea's been out of the business long as Louise; and hell, Smokey didn't think he'd be seeing either of them again. But Tea walks into the Cotter Pin minus one husband–an irascible, moustachioed fellow who'd wooed her with poetry, of all things–and Louise is close behind. River and Junior, too. Life hadn't quite worked for any of them, so here they were, hunting down the last watering hole that had. It's a sad thing, probably, but Smokey's not much for mourning. If he were, he'd probably never stop. He runs a shop, after all. Sad and broken things are always at his door.

"How's Clara?" Smokey asks River. Immediately, the look on Junior's face tells him he shouldn't've.

Clara's not, anymore.

After a few weeks they settle into a rhythm, happy enough. One night Sweet Tea slaps his back bumper and the smile she gives him–it was so sultry it danced in his dreams for weeks. So they played like that, now and again. Smokey never thought much about what it all meant, and neither did Tea. Neither are much for futures. Ain't no sense getting burned twice, and all.

 **4.**

At least until Hud passes on. If Smokey hadn't expected that (and he hadn't), he never lets on. But he starts thinking about Lightning. Lightning, eventually coming. Surely, he warrants the news delivered personally. Surely, Hud mentioned him. A reference here, a chuckle there. Lightning seems hungry, curious enough–surely, at some point, he asked. Days pass, but that's okay. You can't put a stopwatch on mourning, he supposes.

Weeks pass.

Years pass.

Finally, when he hears that engine around the skeleton that was once Thomasville, it all falls into place like Smokey had imagined. Old reflex comes back, too–he can tell how fast that boy is going, knows how long it'll take him to skid to his stop.

For a split second, Smokey thinks, if Lightning hesitates at all–or if Smokey himself is wrong at all–they'll crash head on. Probably die instantly. But Lightning's not here to die.

Smokey stays his ground.

He swallows his pride when Lightning tries–poorly–to hide the fact that he doesn't know Smokey at all. Hud had told no stories.

 **5.**

It's the crabbies that do him in. He hasn't lived this long to start saying words that ain't real. He'd never raised children, wasn't about to start in on that now.

There's a lineage here, Smokey knows. Him to Doc, to Lightning. And now, of course, to Cruz. A legacy, passing on. In Smokey's mind, the way life works is you're meant to pass it on. The more you can see of yourself in the future, the better you've done. Hud not passing their stories on to Lightning? That was a slight. Maybe a little grudge, even now. Even after all the letters.

But maybe not. 'Cause Smokey knows Hud meant the world to this boy. Yet there ain't any part of Hud in crabbies goin' night night. And when he steps down from the box, flustered and blushing under his rust, what takes his place under that headset is all Lightning. He's Hud's boy, always, but also all his own. The Lightning in him is what shines brightest.

And what wins that race, at the end of the day, is all Cruz.

There's something to that, Smokey figures. Even if he's not sure quite what. There's a quickening in him he hasn't felt in a long dang time–that flutter of anticipation. Here he'd thought his days like that were over. Not all stories gotta be re-tellings, though.

He thinks about putting in a call back to Thomasville, even as the hauler pulls them West, toward Radiator Springs. It's late, but Tea's working. She'll pick up.

The future beckons.


End file.
